Why does opening .odt on different computer (both with Debian OS) result in more pages?

English
#1

I have two thinkpad laptops, both running the same version of Debian 12 OS. I created a Writer document using Page Style and Paragraph Style throughout on Laptop-1. On Laptop-1, the page count is 292 pages. Opening the same document on Laptop-2 results in 320 pages. I have diligently looked at every setting in Writer and the settings are identical between them. Both are using same fonts, spacing, etc.

The problem is resulting from Laptop-1 showing 3 more row/lines than Laptop-2 (e.g., on first page of writing, Laptop-1 shows 3 more rows of writing. But the margins, font, spacing, indents are exactly the same. The page styles and paragraph styles are all showing accurately and reports same settings.

What’s going on?.

#2

Writer reports the same fonts because the styles require so, but are the fonts installed on both computers? If you chose other than Liberation or Free families, you may have forgotten to add the “fancy” font to one of the computers.

#3

Yes, all fonts were confirmed installed.

I purposely added exact same fonts to /home/$USER/fonts on both laptops. What I didn’t do was make sure fonts were processed by OS (but visibly the fonts look correct). I will check that now and report back if this fixes the problem.

EDIT: all fonts showing as installed/processed by OS.

#4

Are they the same version of LibreOffice? There is a new page break compatibility setting in 24.2, see ReleaseNotes/24.2 - The Document Foundation Wiki

On a long document it can take a little while (a minute or two) for LibreOffice to paginate the entire document and give an accurate page count

#5

Both versions of LibreOffice are 7.4.7.2, the Debian 12 version.

I saved a copy of the document where I embedded the fonts. The document still opens on the other computer with the wrong page count. It does not appear to be a font issue.

Anybody have any ideas? Every setting I’ve explored is exactly the same across computers.

My goal is to be able to save/preserve the exact page count and layout in the Libreoffice Writer document. How do I do this?

#6

The only way to guarantee exact same layout and formatting is with styles. If your documents are heavily direct formatted, the slightest change in LO configuration can result in discrepancies like you experience. What is your routine? Styles or manual formatting?

#7

The entire document is built on styles. Every page has a page style and every paragraph has a paragraph style applied. This is why I am posting this issue here. I created the whole document in styles expecting this to ensure exact replication when opening across domains.

#8

Obviously you use page and paragraph styles. Do you also apply character styles for intra-paragraph variations like bold or italic?

#9

If the fonts are identical on both systems, and furthermore - LibreOffice versions are identical, then the documents should show identically, no matter styles or not. (Styling is great, and the advice to use it is good, but the idea that without styles, it is “OK” to have differently-looking documents on different systems is wrong.)

So: if there’s no mistake, it must be some bug. Of course, it could be a bug of that ancient version, fixed in newer ones - we can’t know without a proper test.

Anyway, it would be great if:

  1. You test using a newer version.
  2. If it’s there, you can make page-by-page screenshots from both systems, and apply them one atop another in semi-transparent mode, to find out, where the difference starts.
  3. Check if that’s related to the screen DPI - are the systems using different DPI? Is the problem fixed, if you unify it? (Note that if it is, it’s a bug, too.)
  4. Maybe post side-by-side screenshot of the differing place here.
  5. If possible, create a bug report.

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